The day that Crowley cried
by rangerpress
Summary: Halt, Gilan, Will, and Horace are sent to check on prison corruption in Arulean. Will get's coffee withdrawal. A one-shot. This is my first fanfic, so please review.


Halt was not a happy camper.

Crowley had deployed him, along with Gilan, Will, and Horace to check, incognito, on the growing corruption in the Araluen prison. Of course this first meant a night of breaking windows in order to get arrested. Now they were riding through the city in a cage, in a strange guise of armour and dirty, patched clothes. It didn't help that Will and Horace had managed to get half drunk while throwing bottles at windows, and to make matters worse, they were dancing around like demented ballerinas on coffee withdrawal. Halt heard a loud thump, as Horace and Will took a running start and slammed their heads together, then fell over, out cold. Added to this, Gilan was fulfilling his guise of a madman too well. Way too well, thought Halt. His former apprentice began a surprisingly lifelike monkey impression, tripped over Will's unconscious body, and smacked face first into Horace's solar plexus. This awakened Horace, who gave Gilan a thundering kick in the crotch, then rolled over and fell asleep. Now everyone on the city streets was staring, pointing and laughing as they rode by. If he ever got out of this, Halt was going to lock Crowley in closet, and throw away the key.

After two long hours, the wagon jolted to a stop. A burly guard opened the door of the cage and poked Will with his pike until he regained consciousness. When they were all out of the cage, the guard escorted them into a squat wooden building with an iron door, which he closed behind them with a sharp click.

Immediately Halt felt a queer tickling sensation in the small of his back. Wheeling around, he found a dwarfish old man with a shoulder length beard licking his shirt. Halt's foot caught the man under the chin, and sent him sailing into the door with a bell-like clang. This coincided with a meaty smack as Will ran headfirst into another guard, stumbled away, teetering back and forth, and finally collapsed into a heap, where several inmates began jumping on his head. Horace just sat there, seemingly interested in his toes, as Gilan, lying on his back, began kick dancing under the small table. With a bemused sigh, Halt walked over to the meager cot, not much more than a hay bale and a blanket, and lay down. It was going to be a long night.

The next morning Halt shouted for Will to get up. Will, still unsteady on his feet, asked for coffee. Halt pointed him to the decaf pot on the meager breakfast table. Will took one sip, and threw up. Halt left Will groaning on the cot.

Withdrawing a small amount of gold hidden in his beard, Halt asked the guard to let him and the others go. Unfortunately, this only earned him a flogging from the guard. At least the guard hadn't also stolen Halt's gold, or they would have to wait the sentence out. Meaning two months without coffee. Two months of piercing headaches and putrid moods, with no cure. That would be unacceptable.

At long last, Halt finally found a guard who would bring Halt, and only Halt, a steaming mug of coffee. Of course, there's no such thing as free coffee. This guard, Toby Soir, demanded that Halt impersonate him during his midnight shifts, so Toby could go out drinking. In this way, Halt infiltrated the guard structure until he worked out a way to make a break for it.

At last, Toby didn't come back at all for his next shift, so Halt gathered Gilan and Horace, and made ready to leave. But where was Will?

Unfortunately, the two weeks spent in the absence of caffeine had taken their toll on Will. Early in his agony, he found that light intensified his headache, and in the strange, fragmented logic that comes from pain and panic, he'd wedged himself into a gap in the floor, and stayed there, not eating and drinking, but moaning and blithering to himself, trying in any way to stop the ache. When Halt, Horace, and Gilan dragged him out (with no little difficulty), he was rocking back and forth, as if trying to console himself, which didn't seem to be working.

As they headed to the gathering to be debriefed, Horace had the sense to force feed Will some coffee. This seemed to revive him and he at once, without a word, remounted Tug and sped off down the trail. Somewhat bewildered, Horace and Gilan packed up the rations and started to follow. Halt was already on Abelard, and together they trotted after Will.

When they finally got to the gathering grounds, their first thought was that Crowley was giving a speech, as all the rangers were clustered around a huge oak tree. Then, with a start of surprise, Halt saw a small figure hanging upside down from a long bough. The figure was screaming. This time Gilan and Horace gave a start, because a thinner ranger was holding a steaming mug of coffee in front of the figure, which they now saw was Crowley. A roar of laughter, as Will again brought the mug just close enough to smell, and jerked it away again, clarified their suspicions. Crowley was crying like a baby, though no one heard it over the uproar of ear splitting laughter from forty-six throats.


End file.
